


Sometimes the Monsters fight with you

by thecat_13145



Series: Monsters [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Steve Rogers hadn't been born in Brooklyn? What if he'd been born in Berlin instead? How would that change the rest of the world?<br/>A.K.A Sequel to Who Fights with Monsters. Or Logan remembers the fallen and Fury investigates Iron Man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes the Monsters fight with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valderys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Who Fights With Monsters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/380706) by [valderys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valderys). 



> This fic was directly inspired by valderys Who Fights With Monsters. Please read that if you want this to make any sense. Also please read it full stop. It is fantastic and I'm very pleased that she's O.K. with me playing in her sandbox.
> 
> Also this is unbetaed and my first time posting anything here. So if I've done anything majorly wrong (and I almost certainly will have) please tell me. Otherwise, please enjoy and I hope it's a quarter as good as the original.

In 1942, a journalist looking for a quick quote asked Brian Falsworth, A.K.A. Union Jack why he wore the mask.  
  
Brian had paused for a moment, before answering “For my family.”  
  
“You fear Nazi retaliation against them if you identity was known?” The Journalist (some pipsqueak named Johansson) had asked.  
  
“No, my father is a proud man, and I don’t think he could survive the shame of seeing his son running in this get up.” He had smiled at the cameras, though it was hard to tell though the mask. “Let’s face it, gentleman, in peace a man dressed like this in the middle of Piccadilly Circus would receive a one way ticket to the nearest lunatic asylum, not a press conference.” His face was grave as he looked directly at the camera. “But war is a form of madness, and this madness has being forced upon us all. But it will not last forever, and while it does, I would like my father to still able to walk the fields with his head held high.”  
  
That had being Brian all over. He had that genius madness that seemed to affect all British in war, from what Logan had seen.  
  
He had being friends with Ian Fleming and thought that Operation Mincemeat was “a terrific wheeze”.  
  
He’d kept that spark, right up to the end too, and honestly seemed to believe that good would ultimately triumph over evil.  
  
Logan tipped the glass back and swallowed the shot. He picked up the bottle of whisky and poured another into the glass.  
  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
The “Avengers Initiative" had actually come from Stryker and those morons in the CIA.  
  
A team of people with extra abilities, gathered together for the protection of the USA and the rest of the world.  
  
However unlike Stryker, who drugged, brainwashed and broke his team, Fury was determined that this team is going to work because its members want to fight together. They would be united by a common cause, like Dum Dum’s and Logan’s old team, “The Howlin’ Commandoes”  
  
And if his methods make Dum Dum fold his arms and sadly shake his head at Fury, well, he doesn’t care. Because the plan is going to work.  
  
He’s put nearly ten years into this plan and he’s not going to let anything fuck it up.  
  
Particularly Anthony Edwards Stark.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
Roger Pinkerton, also known as Dynamite, had being the more serious of the pair of Brits on the team. Brian seemed to treat the war as though it was an adventure, Percy treated it more as a chess game, abet one with deadly consequences. He and Brian had both being Paras before Hydra got their hands on them, and they were the team’s strategists, Brian coming up with the madcap ideas and Percy somehow or other figuring out how to make them work.  
  
Zola’s experiments on Roger after he had being captured meant he could shrink down to less than an inch tall, which he used to great advantage during saboteur missions, once dismantling a bomb from the inside.  
  
There had being great amusement among Dum Dum and Gabe when they discovered that his nickname at school had being “Pinkie”, though they had to explain the joke to the Brits and the Frenchies.  
  
Once, not long after he’d got out from under Stryker, Logan had admitted to Percy that he just felt like his only role on the team was to provide muscle. Percy, now in his eighties, had beckoned Logan to come closer and hit him smartly over his head with Brian’s old umbrella and told him not to be a bloody fool.  
  
“You were the one who got us to work together, Logan, you and your brother.” He said. “Without you, we’d still be in Stein’s fortress, waiting for someone to rescue us.”  
  
Logan snorted.  
  
Yeah, he supposed that was true enough.  
  
He’d being the one arguing that they couldn’t just sit there waiting to be liberated, that these guys weren’t going to respect uniforms or the Geneva Convention or any of that stuff. They had to get out of there.  
  
Probably they wouldn’t have done anything, if Hitler hadn’t found out about Schmidt’s plans and sent Hauptsturmführer Deutschland to take him down. While the other prisoners had being making a break for freedom, Logan had headed to the labs, followed by the others in his cell, looking for Victor. Except Victor wasn’t there, had never being there.  
  
Sometimes Logan wonders if that is where things started to go wrong between the brothers, if all the stuff that happened afterwards is because Victor couldn’t save him.  
  
He shook his head because that’s really not where he wants to go today.  
  
And even if Victor wasn’t there, they found Percy and Jeff, which was a good thing.  
  
Jeff Macey should never have being anywhere near the front line. He was 4F, and a journalist with a New York Newspaper. But he was also in France when Pearl Harbour happened and couldn’t get out of there in time.  
  
Schmidt saw an opportunity to regenerate the circumstances that had created his rival in Jeff, but it hadn’t worked. Jeff stayed as he was, but he was stronger, faster.  
  
More than that, he was the lynch pin that held them together, as they worked behind the enemy lines, slowly making their way back to the front and their own side.  
  
The press called him “Patriot”, but Jeff had always preferred the title the local resistance gave him. The Destroyer.  
  
Gabe Jones had being a marvel. At a time when Most African Americans were struggling just to get a basic education, Gabe had being working his way through college. Spoke 4 languages, which came in handy. He’d gone back to college after the war, being the first black professor in the USA. That, ironically had being what killed him. In the Detroit race riots, he’d being stabbed. The police never found the guy how did it, though a local, who officially committed suicide a few days later, was generally accepted to be responsible.  
  
Logan downed a double shot. Neither of those two would have approved of what he did today, the way he handled it, but they weren’t here.  
  
And Denier would have definitely approved.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
Banner was a mistake. His project should never have got funding.  
  
After all the shit that Stryker pulled with Weapon X, and the consequences of that, the Super soldier program should have being allowed to die.  
  
Probably should have being put down after the War, but of course military never thinks that way.  
  
And Banner is going paying the price for the rest of his life.  
  
For all his tough talk, Fury knows he won’t kill him unless there is absolutely no other choice. Mainly because it’s not Banner’s fault.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
The first time Logan had seen the guy after the war, Denier had all but ran out from behind the bar and dam nearly rung Logan’s hand off. He’d shown him around Marseilles, introduced him to his wife, his son and his daughter, and then proceeded to get the pair of them drunk on apple brandy. It was one of the few times Logan could remember being happily drunk, singing songs from the war and launching towards the couch, because Madam Denier was a tartar and would not have her husband in her bed like that.  
  
He remembered standing in the town square at two in the morning, with Denier flinging his arms out. “You see Mon Ami” He had cried to the heavens, “This, this is what we were fighting for.”  
  
It probably had being, at least for Denier. His restaurant had prospered, and now was on the tourist map. Even now, nearly two decades after Denier death, Logan could still walk into that restaurant and get anything off the menu “Free and gratui” according to Jacque’s will. He had always enjoyed that he could speak French with Logan and be understood. The fact they had both fought in the First one, had also formed a bond between them.  
  
He poured another shot.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
Thor was and is an accident. Fury honestly has no idea how that Alien? God? Mutant? Thing ended up as his responsibility, but he is, so there you are.  
  
The guy reminds Fury of an overactive Labrador, and needs about the same amount of attention.  
  
Putting him and the Hulk somewhere together where SHIELD can keep an eye on them just makes sense.  
  
Same way it does for Barton and Romanov.  
  
They were going to be a Super (pun intended) special ops team. Coulson was in charge and everything seemed to be going Fury’s way.  
  
Then Iron Man showed up.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
They’d picked up Eric Lensherr, or Max Enhiert (never did discover which one was his real name), by accident. Orders had being to take down some place in Poland which was trying to create a super soldier.  
Logan snorted into his beer. Nice euphemism for human experimentation.  
  
As far as Command was concerned, they’d screwed it up, as they killed the target, one Dr. Klaus Schmidt. Whether Command got things mixed up and thought they were getting Schmidt, or whether the guy was bad enough on his own, Logan doesn’t know.  
  
All he remembers is the kid pulling himself off the table, scalpels flying through the air and finishing off the job that Dum Dum’s grenade had started, and the kid turning to face them.  
  
“Potrzebuję (chcieć) żeby walczyć” he’d said. I want to fight, though it was nearly three days before they found a book that Gabe could use to talk to the kid. It hadn’t really mattered; there was no mistaking the intention in those ice blue eyes.  
Eric, after a few decent meals, had being their secret weapon. No one looked twice at a kid walking through just about anywhere, or hanging around. And when said kid could bend and shape metals by willpower...Logan shook his head, laughing softly into his drink.  
  
The Germans had never known what hit them.  
  
Erik was the member of the old team that Logan saw second most regularly, since he’d settled down with that CIA prof. They had apparently met in Israel, but something in Erik’s scent warned Logan not to ask about what the other man found there.  
  
Erik seems happy with Charles Xavier though, and Logan can’t begrudge him that.  
  
He poured a shot and drank a quick toast to the pair of them.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
At first they thought Iron Man was Stark.  
  
It made sense, the guy certainly has the ego for it, and the armour is definitely based on the one he used to escape the Ten Rings camp.  
  
Then Coulson called into to talk with him during that fiasco with Loki. Lucky he did too, else Coulson might easily have ended up as one of the main casualties of that day.  
  
According to Coulson, Stark was not in the suit, but was communicating with its polit. Coulson is very firm on this point and unless Stark has pushed life decoy models to their limits, then they have to look elsewhere.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan was a marvel. If Logan was the teams founder, and Jeff was the lynch pin, then Dum Dum was the reason the team had survived. The man fussed like a mother hen about boots, food, equipment and the multitude of small details that meant a team could run. No slouch in the fighting department either, Dum Dum had being the second in command, a role it frequently felt like he was born to.  
  
He still held that role with SHIELD, even if officially it’s Maria Hills. But everyone knows while Maria may be in charge when Fury’s off base, Dum Dum’s the one who makes it run smoothly.  
  
He joined up when the thing was in its infancy and tried to get Logan to too. Probably would have succeeded if it hadn’t being for Victor. And Stryker.  
  
Logan growled softly because Stryker is one thing he doesn’t want to think about today. Today is for remembering his friends, the first team he honestly felt like he belonged with, not for remembering that Bastard who betrayed them all.  
  
Logan downed two shots in quick succession. He knew his healing factor made it borderline impossible for him to get completely pissed, but he’s going to give it his best shot.  
  
Particularly today.  
  
The bartender glanced at him, nervously.  
  
Logan had being coming to this bar for about five years, ever since Xavier finally cleared him to leave the grounds and he just wanted to find the first place that served liquor.  
  
Thought Xavier was going to lock him up again after that, but he guessed that someone, and his money was on either Eric or Dum Dum, explained it to him. Either way the incident was never brought up again.  
  
Plus the bartender didn’t object too much about the table.  
  
So he was sitting there, drinking and remembering the guys, and he would stay here until closing time or when his healing factor hits his limits and someone goes and calls Dum Dum to take him home. And Dum Dum would lecture him, but not really. Because taking care of people is how Dun Dum copes with the anniversary.  
  
It was the same thing he’s done every anniversary since it happened…  
  
He caught the scent before he heard the door open, and bar stool pull up beside him.  
  
“Fury,” The growl was a soft sound. “Thought I had the day off.”  
  
“You know it doesn’t work that way in SHIELD, Logan.” Nick Fury caught the bar tender’s eye and gestured to Logan. “What he’s having.”  
  
Logan wanted to tell Fury to piss off. That just for one day, the rest of the world could go hang it self, as he wanted, needed to remember his friends.  
  
But he owed Fury too much. For investigating Stryker and rescuing them all. For taking a chance on Logan when the shrinks said he was physiologically unstable, probably doomed to alternate between catatonia and animal rages for the rest of life.  
  
Plus, Nick knew, understood how much today meant to him. He wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t urgent. He just had to wait for him to get to the point.  
  
Fury took a sip of his whisky, before he said, “Special wavers came through couple of hours ago. Germany’s relating their right to try Von Strucker; he’s to be handed over to the Israelis.”  
  
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.” Logan said carefully. Fury had some beef with Von Strucker. Logan didn’t know what, he doubted anyone else did, but since the former Nazi had being captured by Logan, Tasha and Carol Danvers, Fury had being on edge.  
  
“Yeah.” Fury agreed. “But Strucker ain’t too keen on it. So he’s offering the Germans a deal. Locations of others who escaped.”  
  
Logan snorted.  
  
“Yeah, you and me both.” Fury agreed. “But the top brass are interested.”  
  
He glanced at Logan sideways. “Rumour has it that you once saw Hauptsturmführer Deutschland without his mask.”  
  
Logan closed his eyes, for a moment back in the Alps, high above a train track. Could hear the mutterings of Gabe as he translated the radio chatter, his own eyes fixed on the valley below, keeping an eye on Denier and Brian as they attached the dynamite, ready to blow up the tracks and stop the train. Could see Dum Dum and Jeff checking the equipment for the hundredth time as the train came into view around the corner, and exploded.  
  
Seemed that Hitler had had the same idea, only he’d sent Rutgers and his team to destroy him. They hadn’t managed it, or at least Schimt had escaped.  
  
But watching on that mountain top, Logan had seen the side of the train torn off, and a man flung out, grabbing desperately at the wreckage to save himself. Had seen too the Übermensch break formation, reaching out trying to save them. And then Eric had fired.  
  
The bullet had missed both of the men, Eric was still small and probably his fingers were half frozen, but the shocks of the shot had made Jakob ‘Jeckel’ Scheune, Hauptsturmführer Deutschland’s best friend and second in command lose his grip. He had fallen to his death.  
  
Logan believed that some Italian Communists who were in the area had eventually found the body and sent it back to Russia, but it wasn’t that which he remembered.  
  
It was a moment, when the Übermensch was revealed as human. When he flung back his head, his cowl already almost lost in the battle, and screamed “Jeckel!”  
  
That memory had given Logan, had given all of them he supposed, hope. Their dragon could be slain.  
  
“Rumour’s true.” He said, opening his eyes and drowning another shot.  
  
Fury glanced at him. “Think you could recognise him again?”  
  
Blond hair and blue eyes, a face flushed red by the cold. A body that looked like it belonged on one of the German’s posters of the Aryan male.  
  
Even if that were gone, there would still be the scent of him.  
  
“Maybe.” He glanced at the other man. “What’s going on, Nick?”  
  
Fury stared into his cup. “First three names Strucker gave were worthless. And then he said,” Fury imitated the German’s clipped accent. “And how much is the Übermensch worth to you?”  
  
“Übermensch is dead.” Logan growled.  
  
Fury glanced up at him. “You sure about that?”  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
One of the memories that Fury will treasure until he dies is the first time Logan ate pizza.  
  
He’d given the guy a baptism of fire, throwing him into a mission with Barton. It had worked better than he expected, as they had returned not with the Black Widow’s body, but with Natasha Romanov, wanting to be on the side of Angels.  
  
Fury didn’t know how they managed it, and he didn’t care. The result was enough for him to agree to Barton organising food.  
  
Pizza was such a large; such a normal part of everyone on SHIELD’s life, that it had never occurred to any of them that Logan had never eaten it before.  
  
When it arrived, a banana, pepperoni, pineapple combination that was Clint’s favourite, Logan had spent at least five minutes sniffing at it, determining that it was safe to eat.  
  
They had all watched fascinated as Logan chewed at it thoughtfully, before declaring. “Could do with some bacon.”  
  
It’s just one of a few incidents that serve to remind him that Logan has lived longer than any of them and there are some things he will probably never entirely adjust to.  
  
Like the way he regards out of season fruit and vegetables with a degree of suspicion. Or the way he pauses, not entirely trusting the water to be hot. Or the way Fury’ll find him skulking around the entire SHIELD base not convinced that he can go where he likes. That’s he’s not going to wake up one morning back in a cell on Stryker’s Island.  
  
They’re little things and Logan hides them well.  
  
Iron Man isn’t nearly as good at it.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
“We both know that Howard Stark, maybe rightly, maybe wrongly, credited the Übermensch with saving his life.” Fury said carefully. They had left the bar and were now sitting in one of the small booths. Fury spread the folder out between them, watching the crowd. “Got dragged before the Committee on Un-American Activities because of it.”  
  
“And ate McCarthy live on it.” Logan observed grinning. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy”  
  
Fury didn’t smile, but the corners of his mouth twitched, so Logan counted that as a victory.  
  
“Howard never gave up the search. SHIELD got a lot of redundant Stark Industries technology in return for letting him have access to our satellites. His son kept it up in his father’s memory.” Fury took a sip of his beer. “Last year the project suddenly stops. Vanishes from companies records.”  
  
“Stark finally gave up.”  
  
“Maybe,” Fury agreed. “Or they found what they were looking for.”  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
Here’s what they had on Iron Man, gathered from surveillance, interviews with Stark Industry employees, and some good old fashioned spying.  
  
He’s German, almost certainly from Berlin, according to the voice recognition programs that SHIELD Has.  
  
He joined Stark Industries a little over a year ago, or at least that’s when Iron Man shows up. There is no employment file for him anywhere in Stark Industries, both Natasha and Coulson have looked.  
  
His browsing history reveals an interest in the Nuremberg trials, art and classic motor bikes.  
  
He lives in Stark’s penthouse.  
  
And his fighting style is almost an exact match for the old films of the Übermensch.  
  
It could all be a coincidence, but Nicholas Joseph Fury hasn’t got where he is now by believing in coincidences. Or taking chances.  
  
//**//*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*  
  
“Its a few months later that this guy shows up.” Fury pushed the initial shot of Iron Man, captured on an air force satellite towards Logan.  
  
Logan looked at it, raising an eyebrow. “You think Stark’s ball are that big?”  
  
Fury snorted. “I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out what Stark would or wouldn’t do.” He sighed. “Bottom line, this could all be a coincidence, but if it is, then it’s a pretty big one. And we need to find out before the press does.”  
  
“Thought you had Tasha working on it.” Logan observed. Fury snorted.  
  
“Natasha, while she doesn’t like to admit it, got nowhere. There’s no records for the guy. Stark keeps him pretty close. She did say,” He paused. “She said she thought that Ms Potts knew who he was. And she was frightened because of it.”  
  
“Could be he’s Stark’s lover and she’s afraid of what’ll happen if the Press gets hold of it.”  
  
“Could be.” Fury agreed. “Either way, we need to know. And without forcibly removing the armour, which Coulson says might not even be possible; you’re the best chance we’ve got.”  
  
Logan sat in silence, for a few minutes.  
  
“I’m not taking orders from Coulson.”  
  
“Not asking you to.” Fury took a sip of his drink. “You report directly to me. Natasha and Barton will assume you’re there to watch Barton after his little fiasco. Coulson,” He shook his head. “Coulson will just be pleased to have you on board. The rest…” he shrugged. “Up to you what you tell them, claim to be amnesiac for all I care. “  
  
Logan nodded. “I gotta have a suit?”  
  
“Got Dum Dum working on it.”  
  
Logan groaned. “Not that yellow and blue thing Macey suggested?”  
  
Fury didn’t reply, he just grinned.  
  
That was actually more disturbing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Battle with the Monsters in your mind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/432995) by [thecat_13145](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145)




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